Yep, the sentiment is overwhelmingly what’s so bad about China having our data when Meta does exactly the same if not worse. There’s literal memes about skipping the middleman and sending it directly to China.

Quite a bunch are also learning mandarin to integrate better with them and a lot of chatter about how the divide is entitely made up by the government. The governments are fighting but the people on both sides are nice.

Some culture shock for americans is families in China can actually afford to stock up on food without going broke. Like, a lot of americans are seeing through the US propaganda for the first time.

They might not have free speech there and the guidelines are pretty strict, but one glaring thing is it’s just a good experience there. No arguing, no shitty political takes. The lack of constant negativity and fighting is a breath of fresh air compared to what the american social medias are pushing non-stop because it’s clicks and views and ad money.

I think it’s all a good thing: diversification of social media platforms so you get different perspectives and cultures. We get to see first hand what life really is over there and the reverse as well. And the likelyhood that both the US and China pressure social medias to silence the same discourse is pretty small. You can make fun of Trump and Musk all day there and you won’t mysteriously get burried by the algorithn because Elon pulled some strings to quiet it down. The good stuff has a tendency of being on the other side of borders.

You know the government fucked up big time when thousands of americans are fleeing to Chinese apps and learning the language and all.